Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 2nd November 2025

Dear Friends,

Since the recent assault on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester I have been pondering the meaning of ‘atonement’, because the assault took place when Jews were gathered together on their very holy day of Yom Kippur. Yom means day and Kippur means atonement. Consequently I can’t help wondering what nowadays atonement might mean.

I understand it is a time of forgiveness and reconciliation and I know it is actively practised by Jewish people, not just on the day of worship but also by an act of reconciliation, such as a letter of apology. A Christian friend who did a fair amount of teaching talked about atonement as ‘at-one-ment’; and I recall this gratefully as it speaks to me as a time of loving forgiveness.

In modern history one of the best known examples of atonement was the way Nelson Mandela lived. He used his 27 years of imprisonment, including 18 on Robben Island, in many positive ways including friendship with his prison guards – so much so that he invited one of them to his inauguration. I like to think that even now in Israel and Palestine there will be people on all sides looking for forgiveness and reconciliation.

In Quaker Faith and Practice 10.01 Isaac Pennington is quoted as writing:

Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.

Caroline Pybus

Quakers value diversity. We share this Friend’s message in the hope it will speak to others.

Pastoral Care and Eldership Team: Patricia Cockrell, David Hitchin, Sharon Krummel, Tim Pitt-Payne, Theresa Samms, Emily Slater.